The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-03-26
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
AHALr-oENruRY's SANITARY WORK.

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
HALF-CENTURY's SANITARY WORK.
Queen victoria's reign has been smarked by
great progress in the health and longevity of
British subjects In recent address to the So
ciety of Arts Capt. Douglass Gallon drew a strik-
ing picture of the filthy, over-crowded, immoral,
half-starved and diseased state of the people of
fifty years ago, and outlined the measures which
have been taken for their betterment. Registra-
ton of disease, the first step in semitic sanitary
investigation, was naugurated in 1881, just eleven
days after the Queens accession, but health re-
forms gained slowly until the cholera epidemic of
1S4S, when hygienic advance really commenced.
The result, while less than it should have been, is
a splendid one. In England and Wales the death
rate from 1S3S42 was q. OF per- 900 from $780,
81 it was 1882 per 1000, and the deaths from
zymotic disease, which averaged 4.52 per 1000 in
1S41-5O were reduced to 2.71 per 1000 in 1SS0S4.
In the decade of 1880 go the average annual saw
ing of lives in England and Wales from sanitary
improvements was 1885, in 1s60-7O it rose to TO-
4S1; in 1s7O-sO to As, 443 and in the five years
1SS0-S4 the annual saving had reached 102, 240
lives.
LONGEVITY OF BEETLES.
Mr. J. M'Neil, of Indiana University, mentions
a long horned beetle (Ebwia quadrigeainata)
which lived no less than nineteen years, and prob
ably more than twenty, in an ash door sill. Two
similar cases of remarkable longevity in beetles
are recorded by Packard. A specimen of Mono
kammus confusor, the common pine-bore lived
more than fifteen years in pine bureau; and three
beetles-probably Cerdsphorus balteatus-came
from an apple-tree table, the first after residence
therein of twenty years and the last of twenty
eight years.
The remarkable villages built on piles in pre-
historic times were not confined to the lakes of
Switzerland. Similar lake cities are traced in
Italy, Austria, Hungary, Pomcrania, France and
Savoy, but they are generally smaller, and nearly
all belong to the age of polished stone, instead of
extending through several periods. In Switzer-
land over two hundred of the villages are known,
forty being in the lake of Neuchatel. Each con-
tanned about three hundred huts, and some of
them must have had a population of twelve
fourteen hundred. Scientific guesses have placed
the age of some of the lake cities at less than
seven thousand years, while others are probably
not been unknown in historical times. Herodotus
describes people who lived in a platform city
over Lake Prasias in Thrace, and in the present
day dwellings piles over water are built in
many parts of the world, including New Guinea,
Borneo, Celebes, and even Russia.
SIZE OF ORDINARY METEoRS.
A member of the London Astronomical Society
has pointed out that the common assumption that
a fragment of meteor dust no larger than mus
tard-seed may give the brilliancy of first magni
tude star, is erroneous. To give that brightness
at a distance of 100 miles-about that at which
meteors are usually seen-would require an cleo
trio lamp of 10, 900 candle power. 1t is therefore
probable that the smallest visible meteors have
surface equal to the incandescent portion of 100
candle power electric arc, if not much greater.
THE PHILOSOPHERS STONE IN MODERN SCIENCE.
The possibility of changing one metal into an
other seems to be still an open question, and
chemistry may yet accomplish the oft -ridiculed
purpose of the old alchemists. A spectroscopic
study of the sun has given Prof. ]. N. Lockyer,
the English astronomer, reason for believing that
the substances now regarded as elementary are
really compound while Prof. Crookes, probably
as able physicist as any living, finds that the
observed phenomena of chemistry and physics
point very strongly to the conclusion that all the
so-called elements are but variations of a single
form of NATTER which he terms "protyle" Prof.
Orookes agrees with Faraday that "to decompose
the metals, then to reform them, to change them
from one to another, and to realize the once alb
surd notion of transmutation, are the problems
now given to the chemist for solution"
VIRTUES OF EUROPEAN SPRINGS.
The waters of European mineral springs, &C.
cording to DR.. J. Burney Yeo, have among their
special applications the treatment of hillary OBJ
structions and the plethoric forms of govt, at
Carlsbad of atomic govt, at Rogat; of calculous
disorders, at Vichy and Contrexeville; of chronic
articular rheumatism and govt, at AK les Bains
of n ohafa M hr md ia had of
at Marienbad; of equity and catarrhal dyspepsia,
at Hamburg and Kissingen; of anaemia, at
Schwalbach and St. Moritz of asthma, at Mont
Dore; of throat affections, at Cauterets and Faux
Ronnes of scrofulous glandular affections, at
Kreuznach ), and of all chronic skin affections,
at Aix-la- Chapeile, Cannstadt, La Bourbole and
Uriage.
MISCELLANEOUS.
The ultraviolet or heat rays of the spectrum,
invisible to human eyes, appear to be plainly per-
ceptible to the eyes of ants, according to the in
vestigatons of DR.. Forel, the distinguished Swiss
entomologist.
Probably no application Of science is develop
ing more rapidly than photography. Among re-
cent appliances is q detective camera in the form
of watch, with charm to hold a supply of min
iature dry-plates ; and telescope camera in
which distant objects are brought near by teles-
copic aid and photographed.
The. teeth of an individual often vary greatly in
hardness at intervals, and a Berlin physician,
DR.. W. D. Miller, is experimenting to show that
this is due to varying proportion of lime salts
in the food.
The soil of the Nile delta has proven to be
thicker than was supposed, borings by Royal En-
gineers having failed to reach solid bottom at
depth of 200 feet. Specimens of the soil have
been sent to London, and an appropriation has
been made for continuing the geologically -impor-
tant borings.
In Germany the microphone is now used for
tracing leaks in water pipes, the slightest trick
ling of the water being made distinctly audible
when the apparatus is brought near it.